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Genre Scenes (Fūzoku byōbu)
Artist unknown (Japanese)
About 1640
- Medium
- Six-fold screen; ink, color, gold and silver on paper
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Painting: 147 × 349 cm (57 7/8 × 137 7/16 in.); Frame: 160.5 × 364 cm (63 1/4 × 143 5/16 in.)
- Culture
- Japan
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Asia
- Credit line
- Gift of Robert Allerton
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
The large building complex depicted here contains a bathhouse, teahouse, kitchen, puppet-show theater, and a games room. Inside, commoners and aristocrats alike enjoy the various forms of entertainment, while outside, people dance, play music, and wrestle. A kasamawashi, a street performer who balances objects on a spinning umbrella, performs to the left of the dancers. In scenes of merriment like this one, Japanese artists often depicted figures fighting—this painting includes a sumo match and people arguing over a game of shōgi—to emphasize the heightened levels of energy and excitement.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
